US Archery Level 1 & 2 Coaching workshop

I spent my weekend in Statesboro GA at the Southern Georgia University in their Shooting Sports Education Center attending the US Archery Level 1 and Level Coaching workshop. it was a challenging but fun and interesting weekend. At the end there was a written test which I passed. I missed to of the 80 questions on the test, I wanted to miss none but that did not happen. So I am now a certified level 2 instructor. I do feel however that I will need a good bit of real experience with actually working with students before I will be comfortable calling myself a coach but I did learn a lot and it was a useful experience.

Teaching the course was Coach Trevor Stewart assisted by Coach Cassandra Pelton. Both from the SSEC from SGU.

There was not shooting test but we did practice coaching other members of the class - this was useful but not realistic because the person we were coaching had just gone over the same information we had and knew what to do and how to do it. Still it was a good experience. We did shoot for them mostly I believe so that they could know that we did know how to handle a bow.

There were 4 of us in the class a husband and wife from Costa Rica, they flew in to take the course. The other gentleman was local to the area. We covered a lot of material in two days and I will spend a good bit of time reviewing the books and picking up bits I may have missed during class.

The range was pretty amazing a full 30 meter indoor range and it was beautifully build and setup.
Below are some photos of the Center, the range a shots during class.

NCFAA shoot at DCWC

I had a busy week before the shoot. I received the parts for my new Protour X10, cut and built them. They work very well and I shot them at the field shoot.

The field shoot was very different and there were many new experiences for me. One problem was that even though I thought I had a good sight tape I did not. It was off by 3 yards a 30 yds. and just got worse from there. I wanted to shoot this event so I whet out anyway. Hence my first shot on all distance except 25 yards and shorter was to sighting in and hoping I would get at least 3 good arrows on the target. Except for the two 80 yards shots I did manage to always hit the target and on the 80 yarders I hit the wooden target frame. One high the other low. With the help of the fellows I was shooting with I did get all my arrows and did not lose any. However when I made up this arrows I only put a little hot melt glue on them incase I needed to remove the tips to adjust the weight. This turned out to not be a good idea, during the shoot I lose the tips out of six of my arrows. Replacements already on order.

This 25 with one X I shot from 25 yards and I had another 20 with 2 Xs form 20 yards. I shot pretty well considering most of my first shots were just close at best, I would really like to know how I might have done if I had a accurate sight tape. It is becoming the bane of my archery with m blue Prevail. I seem to have gotten an accurate tape for the Podium.

This was a long day and a lot of arrows and I did burn out some toward the end also I needed to carry more water and some snacks. We also got rained on a little and due to the rain Lee one of the guys I shoot with accidently took four of my arrows home. I have contacted him and will be picking up my arrows Thursday evening. This will be good so I can have all of them with me for coaching school this weekend.

You may have noticed that my arrows had black spin-vanes on them. they work well and look cool but are impossible to see. I have removed them and replace them with red Air vanes in a four fletch.

Tuesday at the range I took the blue Prevail. It was a JOAD coaching night and Lesley and John worked with each of us separately. We started shooting at 5 yards then backed up 5 or so yard after several ends at each spot, Lesley want use to practice 'letting down'. I know it is necessary and needed skill but it

does not seem that hard to do and I would prefer to work on it at some time when I am not using valuable range time but I joined this group and I have benefited from their coaching so I play nice and do as I am asked. To be honest letting down always fell like a failure, I know it is not and it what must be done to start over if the shoot routine goes wrong but I still do not like doing it.

When Lesley got to me she said I was doing what she had taught me last week pretty well, I told her I do it better sometimes than others. I also told her it feels more normal now and I can tell when I do not shoot correctly. She watched me a bit then asked to see how I was holding my release. I showed her, I hold it pretty much as if I was making a fist with the release held inside of the fist. She told me to hold the release mostly on the pads in the space between the the first and second joints of my fingers. Most important is that my finger at the knuckles between the back of my hand and the first bone of each finger is flat. I can do this with out much effort but it feels very strange and like my release is less secure in my hand as I draw the string. This also changes where the string is at anchor so I have had to make so windage adjustments to my sight. She also told me to let my thumb float above the trigger but not to worry about that now. I have been doing that also it did not seem to make sense to relearn my release grip for my fingers then have to go and learn where to have my thumb next.

Wednesday I worked more of the changed release grip with the floating thumb. It is getting easier and does not feel as strange, well the draw still feels strange but anchor and release feel better. I just shoot a ten end scored session today during the two JOAD sessions. I was pretty spent for work this week, moving so when I shot my 10 ends I went home. I am getting comfortable with the release grip and sometimes I shoot pretty well but as can been seen my consistency has gone for now. I am hopping I can get it back soon. above it a 259 a good bit poorer than my best of 277 which is also not very good.

Moore County 3D shoot

I had a good time and managed not to blow up my bow this week.  I had to adjust my sights and reposition my sight tape. I manage to tear the sight tape in half while moving it. I was able to reposition it and reassemble the two halves. I will replace it whit a new one, one made with Archers Advantage and one with a 15 yard mark this time. We had a target at 17.2 yards today which I shot ok on but would liked to have had a range scale on my sight tape.

I shot pretty well for the first five targets then I shot an eight which was not too bad but next I shot under the target and missed completely. We looked briefly but did not find the arrow so I also broke my no shooting the whole match with the same arrow streak. Then it was like the wheels fell off. The next two were low or low and left. I think the low was due to dropping then bow arm early. The next two were OK but then the next four were left and I could not figure out why - after four that were all to far left, they were all 8 to 10 inches left. I adjusted the windage 7 clicks left which turned out to be perfect. What I cannot understand what changed, I checked and the sight knobs were tight and nothing had shifted but the adjustment worked. The five on 18 was just lack of focus. I ranged it at 37 but set my sight at 34. Just poor focus. The final 5 was low and guess I dropped my bow arm again. The lower 12 in the photo is mine, one of the best 12s I have gotten. I confess I was aiming at the point between the center ring and the lower 12 ring but I will take it. My final score which was not on the score card when I photoed it is 167, better than I expected with all those fives, eights and the miss.

I shot this shoot with Full Bore arrows fletched with five inch feather fletchings. I do not feel they worked very well and may have been slowing the arrows down especially at the longer ranges. This may also account for some to the low shots I made - I will I have information about what the range of each target, I will come up with some way of recording what I range each target for so I may use it later during my evaluation. I will go back to the Full Bore with either three inch feather or three inch four fletched vanes. I have had good results with them in the past.

Friday I will spend time with the Podium, there is not a 3D shoot this coming Sunday which is Easter.

Took the blue Prevail 40, the Podium and the Dryad to the range today. I mostly took the Podium to test a few different vane configuration on the Full Bore arrows. The results were interesting. I plan to shoot the Full Bores with the 5" feather fletchings this Sunday at the 3 D shoot.

I spent most of my time shooting the Prevail. I figured out what was causing me to fell that there was something wrong with my anchor point. The problem turned out to be that the peek was too low, I found my self looking through the gap in the string above the peek. John was able to slide it up and my problem with my anchor point was gone.

I am making some progress most all my shoots are in the yellow but the group is still to large but most time they are consistent. I am frustrated that I do not seem to be able to improve more at this time. I shot 103 arrows today and with all I shot Friday evening it was a pretty good practice

Then about to ends later I shot the set in the second image. It is not easy to see but there are five arrows in the group in the 10 ring. But I still cannot do it consistently. At this time I do not know what else to do but to keep practicing being careful to work on the areas I know I have some problems with and that I have been working on.

At 3:30 I packed up the Prevail and shot the Dryad longbow. I t was a lot of fun as usually. I was very accurate Friday evening at 8 yards. I did pretty well at 20 but not as well as I had at 8.
The bow seems to preforming beautifully, in spite of the problems i had getting it I am pleased with it.

Nice evening at the range today. Picked up the Podium after it had it's strings replaced. New string are red and black. They look really good and shoot well also. I was pretty tired this evening but had a good time anyway. While shooting the Podium I realized that the plus one clarifier was missing. it must have come out when the string got ejected due to the dry fire. John did not have any for sale so I have ordered one from Lancaster and will just borrow the one on the blue Prevail after I shoot in on Saturday for the 3D shoot Sunday.

Once the beginners class began after helping them setup I packed the Podium away and got out the Dryad long bow. I am getting pretty good shooting it at 8 yards hitting yellow almost every time on the 80 cm target. I shot a major "robinhood" tonight which was sort of cool but also expensive, two arrows destroyed or damage.

Good time at the range tonight. Took the blue Prevail 40. Took a about a dozen arrow to sight it in which I do not understand because it was very good Wednesday. I have noticed that I have to reset the sight every time I shoot my bows. I assume it is due to the fact that I move the sight extension arm and remove the scope when I pack the bow for travel. Both of these are keyed to go back to the same point but I assume there is a possibility of them being in slightly different spots and that what makes it necessary to re-sight the bow.

I may have reached a limit for accuracy of my current ability unless I am doing something wrong. Most of my arrow hit the 9 or 10 rings, and a lot of them are 9s sort of in circles around the 10 ring. All 9s is 30 points down so I have to do better than this.

I did PR tonight during league, I scored a 277 also I got my first perfect end of three 10s. I came in second out of 3 compound archers tonight. The other two were Jay and Wendy who I shot 3D with last Sunday. Jay won with a 289 and Wendy shot a 273.

There were three bare bow shooter there two recurve and one long bow also one Olympic. The Olympic gave the bare bow shoot a handicap of 100 or 110 points and the 4 archers shot against each other. As did the three compound archers. It all made for an interesting league.

I really hope that the thing that is causing my arrow to be grouping larger than I want sometimes is the weak spine of the arrows. Because if that is the problem the fixing that will be easy, expensive but easy.

A good evening. Took the Blue Prevail 40 to the range. After almost two months of waiting the red vibration dampers for the bow came in. I picked them up at lunch and put them on when I got to the range. I really did not like wasting range time doing this but the bow looks so much better with them that I am glad I did.

I also changed the angle of the cable slider from 9° to 6° because the cables were in my sight image so much they were distracting. I can still see them at 6° but the are almost out of sight to the right. Much better this way but I did had to resight the bow again.

The JOAD archers were shooting for pins tonight but I was not eligible since I had earned my pin this month Tuesday evening. I just shoot and scored to see if I could best my personal best of 275. During the first session I was still working on the sight hence the arrows that hit the blue and my score was 42 down so 258. The second session was better but not great I scored 28 down so a 272 close but also a long way off. I had a lot of ends where I had arrows all in the 9 ring but at 2, 6 and 10 of a clock face around the edge of the 9 ring. That has to be me, there is no sight adjustment to fix that. I guess it might be the weak spine of my arrows but I will not know that until I get the new X10 ProTours - man I have put a lot of money in those arrows due to bad advice from people I trusted to know. Hopefully I can sell them or even better use them on another bow. maybe the bare bow or Olympic but would have to cut them for the Olympic. I did have some really good ends. Three times I would have two arrows both inside out with the third arrow just outside the center ten ring.

My shot routine is not going as well as it was. Part of it is focus and part in that since John made the changes to my bow, which were needed, my anchor point it slightly different and I am having trouble getting use to it. Well I have only shot with the changes twice but still it feels different.

When my new X10 ProTours shalfs get in I am planning to bite the bullet and put SpinVanes on them. It will be a first for me but they seem to be the prefered vane of the pros. Also if I believe Archers Advantage I need to cut the X10 ProTours 380 spine to 28.25 inches. I plan on doing this but it does worry me a bit.

Good day at the range. Dropped off my Podium now if the strings just come in one Thursday or Friday as promised I will be happy.

I had left the Prevail with John since Saturday evening - I wanted him to make sure it was setup correctly and setup as well as is possible for the 420 spine X10 Protour arrows. He made several changes.

1. Moved the rest left and up.
2. Moved the D-loop.
3. Moved the peep.

He sent me this paper tear test which looks great to me. I was looking forward to shooting her even before I saw this.

John does no like the washers I have under the mount for my sight but they work and are what was recommended to me my Axcel, the manufacture of my sight. I had email them and asked about my problem with the scope housing hitting the sight before I could move it enough right to get my left/right correct.

I did not shoot very well tonight, not terrible but not a well as I have been shooting. I was having trouble with focus so my shot routine was off and I had trouble following it. Part of the problem I think was I was a bit hesitant about shooting a bow after what happened Sunday. This feeling got better as the even wore on but I was still having some trouble. I did have to spend all of the practice time before the pin shoot to get the bow sighted in again. After the changes John made it was shooting right and down at about 4:30 on a clock face from center. I was running out of right adjustment so I adjusted the place the sight is mounted on the tube and centered the adjustment for left and right. I was still making small adjustment during the pip shoot but did get it well dialed in for about the 13th end.

Tonight was a pin night and I shot 275 tying my best score to date. I only needed 175 to get my third, Silver, pin so of course I got it.

Tar River 3D shoot - 2

Yesterday I accidentally dry fired my Podium, my 3D bow. It was checked out and appeared to be OK but there was some damage to the strings. I ordered a new set of strings and decided to shoot Tat River 3D shoot anyway. I shoot it a dozen time at the range then another dozen at the range at Tar River. Everything seemed to be fine but on 14th target at full draw before I released there was a sound like a shoot gun. My arrow was laying on the ground 5 feet in front of me, the bow string came completely off and wrapped around my arm and the single upper control cable was off the upper cam. My left arm suffered the worse of it. Moral of there story - Do not shoot questionable strings and cables.

Beside the above I had a real good time at the shoot. This was my first 3D shoot and it is the hilliest of any on them I have shoot.  I got really tired by about the 15 target the first time and in spite of have been on my feet almost all day at the range the day before I have not trouble today, granted it was a bit cooler today but I am hopping I am just a little stronger.

I have switched back to the Easton Full Core arrows which are what I shoot here the first time. The first time I destroyed five arrows and lost two. I have now shot several 3D shoots with the same arrow. Today I was shooting well for me and felt like I was on my way  to breaking 180 or maybe better.

After 10 targets I was 7 down and 9 down at 13 when my string came off and I was forced to stop. I was shooting for 12 and managed to get one if I could have gotten one or two more and just shoot tens and a good bonus I would have been in the 190s.

I shoot to day with Jay and Wendy, a very nice couple who I have shoot with before and met at First Flight Archery.

Next week is back to Quewhiffle Creek and it is also an ASA qualifier. I am not sure what that is but I will ask to find one.  If my strings are not in for my 3D bow I will shoot my hunting bow the Double XL. Not sure if will shoot the Easton Full Core arrows or the Easton BowFire arrows which it is setup for.  I will be shooting it some this week in any rate.

The Full Cores did shoot well, in fact the bow was shooting  very very well shots that felt correct when where I aimed them. Shots that did not feel as correct still were pretty good.  I have a couple of bare shafts complements of Easton due to shaft failures I have had,  that I will make up and four fletch with Ice vanes which I am very fond.  My current Full Bore have two feather fletchings.

Never never never dry fire

Never never never dry fire your bow. First time for me to make this mistake. I hope I will not do this again. The main string came off, one of the control cables came lose on in end. But otherwise the bow is ok. Thankfully. This happened with the Podium, not the Prevail.

Other than this I had a real good day the the range at First Flight. I was first working with the blue Prevail. I was very close to being deal on being sighted in at 20 yards. Also my consistency is improving. I have found that I can reduce my sight movement by relaying and focusing.  I was not able to do it every time but I was getting better at it. I do not know why but sometimes when I shoot I have little or no sight movement but others it seems to bounce all over the place. Maybe I should let down and start over when I am having one of the bouncing setups.

This is my first 10, 10, 10 I have ever shot or if you are only counting center 10s the it is a 10, 10, 9 - I have had a number of those.

When experimenting with the 470 and 420 spine X10 Pro Tours I found out that both are wrong and I need to be shooting 340 spine X10s. I am so frustrated with arrow spines. I will try to sell the 470s, I only have 11 of them, and archer's dozen. LOL For now I will shoot the 420s but in time I will get a set of 340 X10 Pro Tour shafts and build another set of them.

Now why did I call the Prevail the blue Prevail earlier. Well I have decided that I am tired of trying to get the Prevail to shoot both indoor and outdoor arrows. SO I will use my Blue Prevail 40 as my outside bow and set it up and tune it to shoot the X10 Pro Tour. I have ordered from First Flight a Green Prevail 40 setup just like the Blue Prevail and it will be my inside bow setup and tuned to shoot the FatBoy arrows. 

I also took the Podium to the range. I wanted to check the sighting of the scope and to try shooting the Full Core arrows again. The sighting was close and the Full Cores shoot very well but I did have to change the sight and now have to move the tape.

Looking forward to Tar River Sunday.